from the plus:-bonus-rant dept

When I got the email asking if I would like to post my thoughts on this weeks stories, I was a bit hesitant. There's big difference between taking pot shots at the AC's, and hanging a giant bull's-eye around your neck while running across the blog-o-sphere like a streaker at a baseball game. After some thought, I determined that compared to Righthaven's situation,
I've got it pretty easy and should probably relax and have some fun with this.

My name is Marcus. Most of you know me as AJ (when I remember to log in). I work in the Components industry designing the component systems that hold most of your houses together. I do a bit of "end user" IT on the side and consider myself somewhat of a semi-pro gamer. My Steam account has more entries than your average check book, and because of this, I have a serious interest in both IP, and the dreaded DRM. After reading this blog and the gaming forums comments, my concern is that the "cultural gap" between the media consumer and the media provider is growing. This "cultural gap" or disconnect, is producing a generation of consumers that consider the creators of big media the enemy. This is counterproductive, to say the least. I can think of no situation where either side could pull out a win from this, something needs to change.

This is a perfect example of a media-provider/media-consumer disconnect. This company has decided that it's no longer profitable to continue to run the DRM servers supporting the media its customers legally purchased. Now, the consumer will have to purchase blank CDs, then go through the often highly technical process of "ripping" their legally purchased files into a usable format, all before the company "throws the switch" and renders these files useless. Think about it.... after going through this, would you be overly excited about purchasing legal DRM'd media from anyone else, or did they just create a pirate?

Ok well, there should be a "what they hell where we thinking" dept at the Valencia, California police station. The police perform a raid, when they find some "suspicious" DVDs they consult an MPAA investigator. The investigator promptly declares the DVDs in question "pirated." The police then seize the supposed contraband. This is where the real fail starts. Even after the police and the MPAA realize the DVDs are in fact authorized, the police continue to tell the press that the DVDs were “pirated." Well, the media did what they do… They took the police's word as gospel and trashed the company. Now, Lets stop right here. The damage is done; this company's reputation is wrecked. We could argue that this is a "teaching" moment, and were all going to learn from our mistakes... right! Well that's not exactly what happened. A few weeks ago, the Governor of California decided to double down on dumb-ass by making it easier to perform these types of raids. Not only can they destroy companies on the say so of an MPAA "investigator," they are no longer going to require a warrant to do so. Did anyone see that puff of smoke? I think that was our Fourth Amendment!

When you're done mourning the destruction of our 4th Amendment, please take a moment to pay homage to the train wreck that is Righthaven. Here is a company, hired by "Big Media," that is trying to make a living by extorting money from their client's customers. That's right, I said "customers," not "pirates."

Let's look at this for a minute. An entire generation has built its own online culture around defeating content locks, and consuming content in the method that best suits them. Big media has decided that instead of changing its business models to adapt to current market conditions in a way that would allow it to service these customers, it would rather use the legal system as a weapon to force customers into submission. I don't believe that this is best approach, but read the links below and decide for yourself.

This story should be posted at every entry hall into every game company in existence. This is how the game industry creates pirates. Overboard you say? Let's see.... (Warning! Major Rant Ahead!)

I pre-purchased Dead Island, paid in full, pre-loaded the game and ignored the pirated version that was available before launch. Game unlocks... it's go time baby!..... OMG! They uploaded the wrong copy of the game on Steam! /dev!

The Steam forums light up immediately, as one would expect, it was not pretty. Not only did I have to delete the game and re-download, when I got the "correct" version of the game, it was riddled with bugs to the point of almost being unplayable.

One bad deployment doesn't really show a pattern, perhaps it was all just a giant misunderstanding. So I went ahead and pre-purchased Rage, got it downloaded and ready for release. The release date comes to pass, and like before, the anticipation is killing me, so I'm ready to rock and roll as soon as the game unlocks. Like before, it's a bug fest.

The game won't launch, and when I fix that, the textures and FOV made the game unplayable. They got the game fixed up in short order to their credit. Meanwhile a couple of creative guys on the forums had come up with a few workarounds to get things moving. But yet again, the game doesn't work out of the box.

Well, I'm concerned at this point. I've started working out ways to "try before you buy" as I'm already $100 in the red on bad game releases. But you know what, I'm going to give this one more try, the third time is a charm!

Now I'm starting to feel a bit foolish. Three times I paid, three times I failed. I think it's time to find some alternatives. I'm out around $150, and I've had enough. If any of these companies feel the need to point the finger over piracy, I suggest they start with the guy in the mirror. I won't be buying any more media until I'm sure it works.

Well, those were my favorites this week. I hope you enjoyed them. If you have time to post a remark, by all means do so.... Either way, I'll see you in the comments next week!

"It will just drive cyberlockers etc. out of the US and they will use non US servers."

This has of course already happened. From what I've seen, most of the peeps using those types of sites are doing so because it's easy.. not because they don't have alternatives, you have to spend a bit more time on the front end, but it's easy to find these alternatives...

As far as real Pirates...most of your hard core pirates are already "virtually" outside of the U.S. and operating invitation only dark nets. Even if the AA's .... feds .... or whoever get in, nothing they can really do, they lobby to shut them down and they pop up somewhere else.... if there is demand their will be product, you can't turn off human nature...

Reality is...It's all theater, politicians and judges love it...It's very easy for politicians and judges to give big media the impression that they are actually doing something by creating and enforcing one sided laws so media continues contributing money to elections, getting them re-elected so they can create and enforce more one sided laws, getting more money, get elected again.. round and round we go...

Truth is;
PRO-IP lost the war the day they handed over the ability to copy digital data to the consumer.

ANTI-IP lost the war the first time they allowed someone to own an idea.

It's a paradox if you think about it.. we wouldn't be where we are today, technology wise, without groups like the AA's, yet these groups are the ones trying to hold back the technology.... and in holding back the technology, they are causing the people to create new technologies to bypass these attempts to hold us back... round and round we go.. advancing technology at ever increasing speeds........

They keep this crap up, were going to be transferring files through "mind melding" pretty soon..... tinfoil hat anyone?

"This is not a censoring program. This program merely gives you information from which you can make an informed choice."

I was using the term in reference to the part of the definition that states ": a person who supervises conduct and morals: as a : an official who examines materials (as publications or films) for objectionable matter "

Where in, the "official" is a program, and you are using said program to determine "objectionable matter"

"This program merely gives you information from which you can make an informed choice."

This program gives you the ability to censor products of your choice. Call it what you will, but if you write an app called "Boycott SOPA", and you use it to scan for objectionable materials (products) from a company that don't share your views, then by definition, your are using it to censor.

I find it both funny and sad that we (the people) have the ability to create an effective censoring program when we want to avoid something, but the government, with all it's resources, can't seem to do so without looking like idiots or trampling our rights....

"the satellite can just be knocked down by a well aimed shot (which probably costs a fraction of what the satellite did) by any government that decides that the satellite is a "rogue satellite"."

I think it's a little harder to knock down a satellite than that. Depending on the distance from the earth and what type of orbit it's in such as geosynchronous, they could be moving upwards of 15,000 MPH or even faster. It can be done, but it's super expensive and extremely difficult to do undetected.... besides... you would not want to be the first government to throw that stone....

I disagree. If a satellite is broadcasting a signal, and I can retrieve and decode that signal from the privacy of my own home, then I should be able to do so. If they don't want me to decode and use the signal, stop broadcasting it at me.

I know...It's not like stealing power or water, they can't just "turn it off", but who's problem is that?

"Example: Artist cooperatives. Rather than just letting anyone upload whatever to a website, I could see a situation where artists form cooperatives to operate a website shared only by those artists, under a combined contract with various liability clauses and such. I could picture companies writing and selling software to support these types of cooperatives."

LOL. Perfect description of a "dark net" The problem is, you want to decide which ones are legal and which ones are not. Doesn't work that way, and it never will... the technology is out, you cant put it back in the bottle.. you can pass laws making millions of people criminals while destroying the best tool for sharing information ever created.... but you still can't unring the bell.... what you can do however is create a culture of people that fucking hate big business and wrap entire movements around destroying it, even if it is self destructive of them.... but you guys really don's seem to care about any of that... I truly don't understand this mentality....

After reading the first four words, I have decided that Mike is not apologizing for any piracy. He appears to be saying that the perp was "over-punished". Notice he said "over". That would suggest that Mike thinks he should be punished, but that his punishment should be somewhat less. This does not fit the "pirate apologist" shill attack criteria. Please proceed to direct insulting and personal attacks... that is all.....

SOPA/PIPA is already obsolete. Below is an example of how anw why. This is one of hundreds of tools on the way. I'm sure they will make these workarounds illegal, but unless we plan on declaring war on Sweden, not much anyone can do but stomp their feet...